Marketplace payments

How your customers pay you for products deployed through the Akua marketplace

Akua uses Stripe Connect so you can accept payments for products sold through the marketplace. Each workspace connects its own Stripe account, keeping your revenue and payouts completely separate from other sellers.

This page covers your customers paying you for marketplace products. For your own Akua subscription (Free/Pro), see Billing.

How payments work

When a customer purchases a product, Akua handles the full checkout flow: validating the order, routing payment through Stripe’s hosted checkout, and deploying the product after payment succeeds.

1. Customer discovers your product

   Your product appears in the marketplace once you’ve configured at least one Stripe price. Customers browse and select it for deployment.

2. Checkout opens

   Akua validates the order (checking authentication, workspace membership, and product configuration), then redirects the customer to Stripe’s hosted checkout page.

3. Payment is processed

   Stripe collects the payment method, handles 3D Secure authentication where required, and processes the charge. Akua collects a platform fee as a percentage of the transaction.

4. Deployment starts

   After payment succeeds, Akua deploys the product to the customer’s chosen cluster. The customer and your workspace both receive a confirmation.

Billing is tied to the workspace owner

Akua associates Stripe customers with the workspace owner (the person with the owner role) rather than the individual who clicked “buy”. This means:

• Any workspace member can initiate a purchase, but the charge is billed to the workspace owner’s account.
• Team members can change without affecting billing history or continuity.
• Merchants see one consistent customer record per buying workspace, regardless of how many team members make purchases.

When a workspace makes its first purchase, Akua creates a Stripe customer record linked to that workspace. Subsequent purchases from the same workspace reuse the same record.

Setting up your Stripe account

Before you can sell products, your workspace needs a connected Stripe account with charges enabled.

1. Start Stripe onboarding

   Go to Settings → Stripe in the dashboard and click Connect Stripe Account. You’ll be redirected to Stripe’s onboarding flow.

2. Complete Stripe verification

   Stripe requires identity and business verification before enabling charges. Follow the prompts in Stripe’s dashboard.

3. Confirm charges are enabled

   Return to Akua’s Settings → Stripe page and verify your account shows charges as enabled. Products cannot be sold until this is confirmed.

Platform fees

Akua collects a platform fee on all transactions:

• One-time purchases: a fixed percentage of the total charge.
• Subscriptions: the same percentage collected on each billing cycle.

Stripe handles fee collection automatically through Stripe Connect’s application fee mechanism.

Reliability and retries

If a payment fails at Stripe’s checkout, no deployment is initiated. Customers can start a new checkout session to try again.

If a deployment does not start after a successful payment, check your cluster status in the dashboard. Akua retries transient deployment failures automatically. For persistent issues, contact [e-mail].

Ensure your product has valid pricing configured and your cluster is healthy before directing customers to checkout. The dashboard shows configuration warnings when either is missing.

Troubleshooting

Stripe account not connected

Symptom: Customers see an error when attempting to purchase your product.

Solution: Navigate to Settings → Stripe and complete the account connection flow. Charges must be enabled on your Stripe account before products can be sold.

Payment succeeded but no deployment

Symptom: The customer paid but their product did not deploy.

Solution: Check your cluster status in the dashboard. If the cluster is healthy and the issue persists, contact [e-mail] with the customer’s workspace ID and the approximate time of purchase.

Customer was charged but wants a refund

Solution: Issue refunds directly from your Stripe dashboard. Akua does not process refunds on your behalf. After issuing a refund, you may also need to remove the customer’s installation manually from your dashboard.

API

Manage checkout sessions and order drafts programmatically.

Order Drafts API

Create and manage pre-payment order drafts and checkout sessions.

Authentication

Mint API tokens for programmatic access.

Related topics

Marketplace

Configure your storefront and publish products.

Billing

Your own Akua subscription, separate from marketplace payments.

Products

Package your software and configure pricing.

Plans and pricing

Compare plans and understand workspace limits.